News
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Gail Quagliata
Casa Susanna (on epic finds)
What drew me to the work was the urgency to document the normal. As many who have written about Casa Susanna (the book) have stated, transvestites in pop culture are shrouded in a veritable haze of stage lights, glitter, and feathers, but these ladies are, more often than not, altogether domestic and grounded - posed demurely for Christmas cards, in near-matronly cocktail dress, simply living out roles as average women, hardly a Cher or Jayne Mansfield in the bunch.
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Gail Quagliata
Bacalaitos and Fireworks
My friend Arlene Gottfried has been shooting in and around her hometown of NYC since the 1970s. Her latest book (which is just coming out), "Bacalaitos and Fireworks," tracks her 40 odd years documenting her time in and around the Nuyorican community. From the quiet portraits of her dearly departed Miguel Piñero to the crackling, color-saturated moments stolen during parades and everything in between (a pig roasting in a rubble-filled city lot, little girls in crisp communion gowns marching past the dystopian, surreal setpieces of a crumpled car and a battered tv, bizarre moments of city life that would seem staged if the characters caught therein weren't so irrefutably genuine), Arlene manages to make the viewer feel like he or she is with her in that moment, like a welcome participant in some grand secret, great spectacle, private moment, neighborhood function, or deep sorrow. She'll be presenting her work at 3pm today at B&H's Event Space on 34th and 9th.
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Gail Quagliata
Allow me to introduce myself (with black metal and nightclubs)
Through the care and rigor taken with this series, Beste's bright images of humanity mid-celebration transcend mere glimpses of "debauchery after dark" to become something more culturally sublime and richly codified, in the way his Norwegian metal-men become sad warriors without a crusade when fixed in his lens.
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Pradeep Dalal
GEDNEY ON BELLOCQ
For many years I have noted down quotes, aphorisms, favorite bits from articles, essays and books and even TV interviews in little cvs notebooks and I return to these sometimes, now rarely as there are so many little notebooks and they are not organized. However, the photographer William Gedney (1933-1989) kept very detailed notebooks in
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Pradeep Dalal
LEWIS BALTZ “PROTOTYPES” ON VIEW AT THE NATIONAL GALLERY, WASHINGTON, DC UNTIL JULY 31, 2011
I apologize for the long silence – I was overwhelmed by exhibitions and other deadlines, but hopefully I have a few new things to share from visits to the Catherine Opie show at the ICA in Boston, and the Grazia Toderi installations at the Hirshhorn, and the superb Lewis Baltz show at the National Gallery
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Pradeep Dalal
DAVID MALJKOVIC RIFFS ON FRANZ KAFKA AND ORSON WELLES
Croatian artist, David Maljkovic says that a lot has changed in Zagreb where he lives and where Orson Welles filmed “The Trial” in the early 1960’s. In his project “Recalling Frames” which has been on view at Metro Pictures for the past month (it ends today – sorry for alerting you so late!) he combines
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Pradeep Dalal
Susanne Kriemann and Victor Hasselblad
Photographers have a pretty intense relationship with their cameras. I remember reading that it took Dianne Arbus over a year to get used to her Rolleiflex when she changed cameras (the Met show in 2005). I am taken aback when I inventory the cameras I have used over the years: several Nikon FM’s, Leica M6,
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Pradeep Dalal
SPOMENIK BY BELGIAN ARTIST JAN KEMPENAERS
A few months ago a promising young artist - and recent Bard/ICP graduate – Pierre Le Hors told me that one the most interesting books he had seen at the NY Artist Book Fair at PS1 was “Spomenik” by Belgian artist Jan Kempenaers. He sent me a link to the website of the superb Roma
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Pradeep Dalal
TWO PROJECTS: NINAR ESBER AND CATHERINE PONCIN AT THE DARAT AL FUNUN IN AMMAN, JORDAN
Last month I visited India to work on a new project in Nagaur and on my way back to New York, I stopped for a few days in Amman, Jordan and visited an alternative art space called Darat al Funun – a series of houses and lovely gardens and courtyards on a side of a